1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a backlight assembly focusing light in at least two regions and a multiview display device having the backlight assembly.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
A display device of related art provides the same image over a wide viewing angle range and to a plurality of users at the same time. When a single display device is used, it is difficult to simultaneously provide various images requested by a plurality of users so that individual watching preference is often disregarded.
To address the above problem, a multiview display device displaying different images in different directions has been developed. The multiview display device displays different images in at least two directions so that users located in the different directions may freely watch desired images. For example, when a multiview display device is provided in a navigation apparatus, a driver may receive a road condition information while a passenger may receive other information such as movie, or news.
The multiview display device includes a display panel displaying an image and a barrier substrate separating an image provided to the display panel in different directions. The display panel may use a liquid crystal panel that is small and compact and consumes less power. The liquid crystal displays an image using light provided by, for example, a backlight unit. In the multiview display device, since the light provided by the backlight unit is blocked by the barrier substrate, a light efficiency is deteriorated.
Also, the backlight unit providing light to a general liquid crystal panel is designed to focus the light in a direction perpendicular to a plane of the liquid crystal panel to present a wide viewing angle. In other words, the backlight unit uniformly provides light over the overall surface of the liquid crystal panel. Accordingly, when a related art backlight unit is applied to the multiview display device, the multiview display device has a higher brightness in the front direction than in a main viewing angle direction along which an image is displayed. Thus, the brightness of the multiview display device is deteriorated.
Furthermore, since the multiview display device displays different images in at least two regions, the images may overlap each other. In doing so, if the multiview display device has a uniform brightness, an image overlap phenomenon may be maximized.